After dinner, all hands are on deck, and kept there till dark.  In very large merchantmen, and all warships, this rule is departed from, and the watch is not so torturing—­so true is it that the servants in small establishments, whether on sea or land, are always the worst treated.  However, we suppose that the hands are on deck.  The breeze has now almost died away, and the sea runs in long, low, slow swells; the ship gently rocking, and the sails occasionally collapsing with a crash against the creaking masts.  Surely, thinks the landsman, there is now nothing for Jack to do but turn his quid, crack his joke, smoke his pipe, or overhaul his chest, and put the things to rights in the forecastle, after the ‘hurrah’s nest’ created by the squall in the past night?  Ah, friend, it is very evident that you don’t ’know the ropes!’ When on deck, a sailor is never idle in the day-time; even if rain is pouring, something is found for him to do; and in fine weather, like the day we are describing, there is a superabundance of work.  The carpenter has his bench out—­for ’a ship is like a lady’s watch, always out of repair;’ the steward is polishing the brass-work of the quarter-deck; the cook is scouring his pots and pans; the sailmaker is stitching away in the waist; and the crew are, one and all, engaged in picking oakum, spinning yarns (not such yarns as those amiable gentlemen, the naval novelists, talk so much about, but rope-yarns, by the aid of spinning-winches), platting sinnet, preparing chafing-gear, bowsing slack rigging taut, painting boats and bulwarks, scraping yards and masts, fitting new running-rigging, overhauling the spare sails, and fifty other things—­doing, in fact, everything but idling.  And, mind, no conversation is allowed among the men—­not a word more than necessary for the performance of their several duties.  If they chat at all when on deck, it is ‘on the sly,’ and out of sight and hearing of the vigilant officers, who have eyes like the lynx, and ears as sharp as needles.

At 4 P.M. commences the dog-watch—­that is, the ordinary watch of four hours divided into two watches of half that length; and the use of them is to shift the rotation of the night-watches.  About 6 P.M. we get supper, and all hands are on deck till eight bells (8 P.M.), when the starboard-watch go below, and we, the larboard-watch, have the first night-watch—­just as they had it last night, and will the next after.  There is very probably plenty of work to do in shifting and trimming sails and rigging till eight bells again strike (12 P.M.), and then we summon the other watch with:  ‘Starbowlings, ahoy!’ and go below in turn; and so ends our day.

We have given a fair enough specimen of the twenty-four hours of a sailor’s life at sea; but of course he sometimes has an easier, and sometimes a much harder life of it—­depending on the kind of ship, the nature of the voyage, the state of the weather, and the character of the captain.  Some sea-captains are excellent, kind-hearted men, and make the unavoidably hard duties of their crew as easy as it is possible; but others—­and very many we fear—­are terrible salt-water tyrants.  A captain is the absolute master of all on board—­his government, as we have said, is a despotism; and this ever-present sense of his will being law while afloat, too often hardens and brutalises an originally kind heart.